A Watcher of Thy Spaces
A watcher of Thy spaces make me,Make me a listener at Thy stone,Give to me vision and then wake meUpon Thy oceans all alone.Thy rivers' courses let me followWhere they leap the crags in their flightAnd where at dusk in caverns hollowThey croon to music of the night.Send me far into Thy barren landWhere the snow clouds the wild wind drives,Where monasteries like gray shrouds stand--August symbols of unlived lives.There pilgrims climb slowly one by one,And behind them a blind man goes:With him I will walk till day is doneUp the pathway that no one knows ...
Words in this poem
- watcher n.
- One who watches; one who sits up or continues; a diligent observer; specifically, one who attends upon the sick during the night.
- croon v. i.
- To make a continuous hollow moan, as cattle do when in pain.
- unlived a.
- Bereft or deprived of life. [See 1st pref. Un-, and Life, Live.]
- pathway n.
- A footpath; a beaten track; any path or course. Also used figuratively.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Watcher of Thy Spaces is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, translated by Jessie Lemont, with an introduction by H.T. (New York: Tobias A. Wright, 1918), Project Gutenberg ebook #38594, the Jessie Lemont translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Rainer Maria Rilke, A Watcher of Thy Spaces, in Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #38594, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rilke-poems-lemont/a-watcher-of-thy-spaces.html, id L27774.
Form and metre
A Watcher of Thy Spaces is 16 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCDCDEFEFGHGH. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%).
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABABCDCDEFEFGHGH meA · stoneB · meA · aloneB · followC · flightD · hollowC · nightD · landE · drivesF · standE · livesF · oneG · goesH · doneG · knowsH
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| A watcher of Thy spaces make me, | 9 | ·/˘··/˘·· |
| Make me a listener at Thy stone, | 9 | ···/˘˘··· |
| Give to me vision and then wake me | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| Upon Thy oceans all alone. | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| Thy rivers' courses let me follow | 9 | ·/˘/˘··/˘ |
| Where they leap the crags in their flight | 8 | ········ |
| And where at dusk in caverns hollow | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| They croon to music of the night. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Send me far into Thy barren land | 9 | ······/˘· |
| Where the snow clouds the wild wind drives, | 8 | ········ |
| Where monasteries like gray shrouds stand-- | 9 | ·/˘·˘···· |
| August symbols of unlived lives. | 9 | /˘/˘·˘/˘· |
| There pilgrims climb slowly one by one, | 9 | ·/˘·/˘··· |
| And behind them a blind man goes: | 8 | ········ |
| With him I will walk till day is done | 9 | ········· |
| Up the pathway that no one knows ... | 8 | ··/····· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.